Who Funds the Pro-Gun Side? The 990 Filings Say It's Not Who You Think

The gun-rights side publishes its finances the same way the gun-policy research side does: in IRS Form 990s that anyone can read. When you read them, the familiar picture inverts. The pro-gun world, on these two returns, is not funded by a handful of shadowy billionaires. It is funded by bingo.

This is a two-filer sample, not a census of every gun-rights organization.

The two filings that matter most

The Second Amendment Foundation (EIN 91-6184167) is a small shop by nonprofit standards. It filed:

• 2023: revenue $9,081,420, of which contributions were $9,065,725. Expenses $7,822,088; program services took $6,294,705.
• 2024: revenue $9,010,738, contributions $8,772,464. Program services rose to $7,155,918.

The revenue is essentially all contributions. A single-year sample of grants received lists about $1.09 million from 33 grantmakers. In other words, of a $9 million year, about 10% came from organized philanthropy. The rest is what a membership organization can raise from ordinary donors.

SAF’s own annual report says it held 55+ active lawsuits in 2024, five of them new, and claims “more than 80% of every dollar donated goes directly to our mission.” Those are SAF’s numbers. They are not a count of the GunMapUSA case tracker. Grepping that tracker for SAF yields a handful of mentions. SAF is a major litigant. It does not own the corpus.

The NRA Foundation (EIN 52-1710886) is a different species:

• 2023: revenue $34,224,215. Contributions were $15.63 million — and the second-largest line, at $12.35 million, was “gaming”: bingo, raffles and similar activities. Fundraising events added another $3.86 million. Grants totaled roughly $9.9 million across 2,400 awards.
• 2024: revenue $42,527,486, expenses $32,344,623, assets over $212 million.

The gaming line is the story the analysts skip. The single largest organized fundraising stream in these two filings is not a billionaire’s check; it is hundreds of raffle tickets and bingo cards sold at American Legion posts and fire halls — the Friends of NRA event network, which its own materials say has held 25,000+ events and grossed more than $1.1 billion since 1992.

What the money buys

The NRA Foundation’s 2023 grant list ran from $7,034,205 to the NRA itself down to hundreds of local grants for youth shooting programs, Eddie Eagle, Boy Scouts and 4-H, hunter education and law-enforcement training, with notable institutional grants such as $274,353 to Hillsdale College. The shape is a training-and-education distribution apparatus, not a research-institute network.

SAF’s spending is a litigation budget. Nearly all of its program-service dollars go to lawsuits. One side of this pair funds legal claims; the other funds youth programs. Both file 990s; neither filing is a mystery.

The comparison that matters

The companion six-foundation article on gun-policy research money is a different form (990-PF) and a different instrument. Side by side, the asymmetry is not only in the totals:

• The sampled anti-gun dollar flows from a few named family foundations into dedicated research centers and advocacy staff.
• These two pro-gun dollars flow from small contributions, event tickets and gaming receipts into litigation and local-education grants.

Both totals are large. Neither sample is complete. The difference in where the money comes from on the filings we actually opened is documented, not speculated, and the returns are linked above.